Honeybees: 6 Facts You Didn’t Know

The striped, black-and-yellow insects flying around your yard aren’t just there to keep you far away from your plants or to elevate your hatred for stinging insects.

Honeybees are up to more than you think.

For example, one hive can hold up to 35,000 honeybees that are busy at work producing pounds and pounds of honey.

6 more honeybee facts you probably didn’t know:

1. Supersedure

Queen honeybees are about twice as long as worker bees and can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day! Despite the high magnitude of eggs, queen bees may be replaced if other bees are unhappy with her performance. The process is called “supersedure” and the bees take care of it themselves without a beekeeper.

2. Long Live the Queen

… for about 40 times longer than a worker bee! Queen bees typically live as long as three to five years while worker bees only live for four to nine months. Drones, on the other hand, have a much shorter life span as they die upon mating with the queen.

3. Bees Can Outrun You

You’re probably capable of a quick running pace when you’re escaping bees. But bees are just as quick to follow. A honeybee can flap its wings 230 times per second and fly between 15 and 20 miles per hour. Especially if the bees aren’t carrying any nectar, their light body weight allows for a quick flight from place to place.

4. A Teaspoon of Sugar

Out of all those insects flying around, honeybees are the only ones to produce food eaten by humans. They’re busy at work, but a honeybee will only produce 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

5. Bees in Space

In a 1984 shuttle mission, over 3,000 honeybees were brought aboard Challenger. The seven-day mission and lack of gravity was no challenge, though. The honeybees adjusted to the conditions and went on to build honeycombs nearly identical to those made on the ground.

6. A Friendly Swarm

While honeybees are beneficial creatures, sometimes they can swarm and make humans feel frightened. Even though they’re not aiming to attack, a bee swarm can look dangerous to anyone not in full beekeeper attire. Swarming is actually a method of reproduction for honeybees, and as long as humans aren’t after the bees themselves, they’re not going to sting unless they’re provoked.

If you’re worried about a bee swarm in your yard, or you’re concerned about a honeybee population, don’t try and deal with the situation yourself. Plunkett’s Pest Control will take care of honeybees for you. No respectable pest control company kills honeybees. Instead, we work with beekeepers to practice safe, responsible, ethical removal. Make a phone call to the family-owned and -operated business that’s been in operation for over 100 years to learn what to do about the honeybees around your home.